Koreking The Past: Dogs In Islam – Part 1

When I was a student in the UK, I used to take my neighbour’s dogs for walkies. I even pat them. My fellow Malaysian Malay Muslims would cringe and ask if I am a Muslim.

Dogs are being labeled as najasah (dirty impurity) by Muslims who take the words of so-called scholars (Ulama’) as something inscribed in stone, without once refering to what God has said in the al-Quran about dogs. The fact is God reated every living thing on this earth as belonging to an ummah (community). So human beings, cats, dogs, pigs are all of one community that was created to be subservient to the One God. There is no distinction between these creatures as to whether a pig is more pure than a human being, or if a cat is better than a dog. The fact is, dogs have been mentioned in the al-Quran several times…5 times if I read correctly.

The concept of a dog being dirty came about with false hadiths claiming that the Prophet (pbuh) ordered the killing of dogs and that dogs can only be kept for the purpose of guarding and hunting, due to their dirty status. If Muslims are able to read the Quran, then such hadith should be decreed as lies fabricated to ridicule the Prophet (pbuh).

God tells us in the Quran about the story of the dwellers of the Cave (Surah 18)……in verse 13 God tells us that they were good believers and that God guided them. In verse 18 God tells us that they had their dog with them. Now if dogs are prohibited and dirty, would God speak of those dwellers of the Cave (who had a dog) as good believers?

In 5:4 God tells us that it is OK to eat what the trained dogs catch (dogs are used in hunting)……….if dogs are dirty would God say that it is OK to eat what they catch with their mouths.In 5:4, God said:

“They consult you concerning what is lawful for them; say, Lawful for you are all good things, including what trained dogs and falcons catch for you. You train them according God’s teachings. You may eat what they catch for you, and mention God’s name thereupon. You shall observe God. God is most efficient in reckoning.”

Islam is a way of life. It is when it is being given the brand of a religion that its followers have gone bonkers and come up with lots of ridiculous hogwash taboos. Imagine this: in the Shafie school of thoughts, a dog is impure and therefore anything that it touchs requires a massive cleaning operation that is 6 times with water and one time with dust/clay-water. Now…if the Arabs have hunting dogs and a dog retrieves a bird that has been shot, imagine what clay-water would do to the taste of the bird. According to Imam Malik’s school of thoughts, a dog is not impure. You can touch it, you can hug it, it will not affect your wudu’ (ablution).

So whose Islam is right? Malik’s or Shafie’s? Don’t we all pray to the same God? And what did God say about who is a Muslim? Isn’t it about abiding to the five pillars of Islam (Rukun Islam)? And what about the six pillars of Faith (Rukun Iman)? What do they say?

The first is to believe in God’s Lordship,Oneness (Entity concept) and Attributes; second is to believe in His Angels; third is to believe in His books (the Quran, the Bible, the Torah and Zabur (Psalms of David); fourth is to believe in all His Messengers…25 main ones in all; fifth is to believe in the Day of Resurrection; and lastly, to believe in Fate and Divine Decree.

But as “believers” we chose not to believe in His books; what we choose to believe instead is in the sayings and writings of certain scholars whom have intepreted the Quran and hadith according to their own whims and fancies.

Back to dogs, one laughable taboo is the dog is so impure that if you were to allow dogs in your home, the Angels wouldn’t enter your house to bless it..much like garlic is to Count Dracula, or cats to Imhotep, the Mummy. But to my surprise, one Angel seems to have some kind of immunity towards dogs and still enters the home of believers and non-believers alike to take away their life.

Because we, the Muslims, have rejected God’s Quran, therefore we live in obscurity and backwardness. And we blow people up, treat women like slaves, and tell people how great we are.

Hi Ami, thank you for visiting. It is sad, isn’t it, that when nowhere in the Quran prescribes dogs as najis, we human beings, and so-called muslims brand them so. We forget that Islam is about loving every being, pigs included, although the pig is the only animal specified by name that is not to be eaten. Still, we are not suppose to mistreat pigs, let alone dogs.

I suppose Muslims do not have the patience to see how God works, that we prefer to become God ourselves.

Masha Allah., good work. I’m a Indian Muslim, was in search of ‘Dogs in Islam’. My Non-Muslim friends is to ask about this topic and i had to skip as there was no answer in me. Al-hamdulillah, now i can surely convience them with evidence. Jazakallahu kahir

Thank you for visiting my blog. There seems to be a general misinformation on the status of dogs in Islam. If one is level headed, one would stop and think why did Allah create all His creatures and name Himself as the God for ALL. However, 1500 years of digression, and selfish interpretation have made this beautiful Islam a bane and burden to most, and all because we put our trust in fellow mortals who portray themselves as knowledgeable, instead of trusting Allah’s book.

Assalamualaikum. I’m thankful to have finally found this blog. I’ve been searching for concrete words that dogs are haram but couldn’t find any, except for different types of hadiths. I’m a female Chinese Muslim and currently seeing an American guy. I was so ignorant, though I consider myself not really a good Muslim but when I’ve been questioned by that guy, I started to realize that we have been following what we were told when we were young. Now I have my final verdict on dogs and need to look further into pigs since he loves pork so much. I’ve yet to explore your page, which I hope you have the information I’m looking for. To me, all that matters is Quran and Sunnah. In fact there’s no “ayat” that said we have to follow hadith. If I remember it correctly, the prophet said something that means He left us with Quran and his Sunnah to guide us. I’m so gonna share this with my father, who is still searching for the truth. I can understand how difficult his life was when he converted with all this taboos. I think our culture dictates our belief. And so much of Mazhab that I now start to question the relevance of each Mazhab. Like why must we have 4 and why do we chose Shafie instead of the other 3? I totally agree with you, Allah is One, and we are not following His ordained. In fact we are following what Shafie said or Hambali or whoever, which is so wrong.

‘Alaikummussalam. Thank you for dropping by. I only write stuff like this when I am upset with certain things, or think that some things have been misrepresented or misinterpreted. Other than that this blog contains ramblings of mine. I have also written on the question of aurat, the celebrations of Nisfu Syaaban and Maulud Nabi (both have been declared bid’ah and haram in Saudi Arabia).

As for your search for pork, there are four (4) ayats that says God forbids us from consuming pork. You can find them in al-Baqarah 173; al-Maidah 3 and 60; and an-Nahl 115. My belief is that the anatomy of pigs closely resemble that of human beings, and as you know, there have been instances of heart transplants using pigs’ heart in human beings. Furthermore, more often than not, viruses that infect pigs can jump species and infect human beings as well, making pigs the perfect host and incubator for diseases that human beings are prone to suffer from. Probably back in the old days, such explanation would be too much information for the people then.

I’ve copied this link and shared with my father. Hope this helps him and me too. Surprised to note you’re in drilling too! A little bit out of topic, but I’m working on a rig at the moment in West Africa with bunch of expats. I never put enough attention to Islam until I was “interrogated” by them here. Then slowly I started to realize how ignorant i have been all this while. I’ve a lot of things to dig up, on prayers, fasting, the dos and donts. Hope I can still use some of the info here to help me to explain to these people. I will look into those aurat reviews. I have to say most people associate Islam with Arabs and when they see me not covering my aurat, that creates huge confusion to them. I wish I have my tafsir with me here to look at those specific ayat, but guess I’ll have to wait til I go back to KL. Anyway many thanks for sharing!

I applaud your open-minded inquisitive views into Islam which is lacking in many muslims. Sadly, most of us muslims never dare to questions thinking it is disrespect to GOD. However I believe GOD want us to understand and think rather than follow bindly. All creatures are created by GOD and that includes dog and pigs. GOD never ask any of us to hate pigs yet many muslims squirm at the sight of pigs. Why??! We are ask not to consume..but do we have to discriminate them??? I thinking of setting a blog too and learn about true Islam…..not distorted by views of some ancient scholars. Thank you very much…thank you for being a thinker.